Advantageous acquisition for Aevum
SAKKARA LIVING has sold seven New South Wales retirement villages to Aevum for $90 million. Herbert Geer & Rundle (HGR) advised Sakkara and Minter Ellison advised Aevum.HGR partn
SAKKARA LIVING has sold seven New South Wales retirement villages to Aevum for $90 million. Herbert Geer & Rundle (HGR) advised Sakkara and Minter Ellison advised Aevum.
HGR partner Peter Short led the firm’s multidisciplinary team that included property partners Tony D’Agostino and Kylie Matthews, assisted by special counsel Alice Spizzo and senior associate Michelle Graham, in the preparation and finalisation of the legal documentation. Partner Steven Smith and corporate advisory partner Adam Brooks also assisted, along with partner Leon Gorr and solicitor Terence Tan from HGR’s tax team. Partner Mark Standen and Victoria Matthewson led the Minters team.
“Meetings and negotiations went into the late hours of the nights but a cordial and professional feeling persisted throughout,” Short said. A “very comfortable working relationship” was established between the two legal firms and companies.
Short said the transaction had featured mutually commercially advantageous feelings in all the meetings and negotiations that took place.
The acquisition was a very significant one for Aevum, making it the major for-profit provider in NSW and one of the top six in Australia, as well as the largest pure retirement living vehicle listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. It almost doubled the company’s portfolio to 1,635 retirement units and aged care beds.
Standen said the deal took Aevum much closer to its goal of 2,000 retirement units and aged care beds.
Sakkara founders Neil Wilson and Gus McIvor announced that the company would not leave the retirement village sector, and was looking for new development opportunities on the eastern seaboard, including joint ventures.